Orhan Pamuk Quote

Life is short, and we should respect every moment of it.
ORHAN PAMUK

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.
ORHAN PAMUK

To appropriate an invention, be it artistic or technical, you have to have at least a part of your s...
ORHAN PAMUK

I have the legacy of my father and his nocturnal automatic waking up. But I like those periods. I im...
ORHAN PAMUK

I write because I have an innate need to. I write because I can't do normal work. I write becaus...
ORHAN PAMUK

If a writer is to tell his own story - tell it slowly, and as if it were a story about other people ...
ORHAN PAMUK

When I paint, I definitely live in the present, like someone in a shower whistling or singing.
ORHAN PAMUK

The secularists in Turkey haven't underestimated religion, they just made the mistake of believi...
ORHAN PAMUK

One side of me is very busy paying attention to the details of life, the humanity of people, catchin...
ORHAN PAMUK

The habit of collecting, of attachment to things, is an essential human trait. But Western civilizat...
ORHAN PAMUK

I would be pleased if someone would invent a pill to remove my impatience, moodiness, and occasional...
ORHAN PAMUK

I had the feeling that focusing on objects and telling a story through them would make my protagonis...
ORHAN PAMUK

From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: somewhere in the str...
ORHAN PAMUK

I came across humanity in Istanbul, and all I know about life comes from Istanbul, and definitely, I...
ORHAN PAMUK

I don't much care whether rural Anatolians or Istanbul secularists take power. I'm not close...
ORHAN PAMUK

When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my...
ORHAN PAMUK

Istanbul is a vast place. There are very conservative neighbourhoods, there are places that are uppe...
ORHAN PAMUK

I consider myself Istanbul's storyteller. My subject matter is my town. I consider it my job to ...
ORHAN PAMUK

A museum should not just be a place for fancy paintings but should be a place where we can communica...
ORHAN PAMUK

The truly great books are always novels: 'Anna Karenina,' 'The Brothers Karamazov,' ...
ORHAN PAMUK

Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.
ORHAN PAMUK

Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.
ORHAN PAMUK

When I write, I feel that I'm writing with my intellect. When I paint, I think it's some oth...
ORHAN PAMUK

Modernity means overabundance. We are living in the age of mass-produced objects, things that come w...
ORHAN PAMUK

'Snow' is my most popular book in the United States. But in Turkey, it was not as popular as...
ORHAN PAMUK

Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be ha...
ORHAN PAMUK

Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.
ORHAN PAMUK

Nothing can be as astounding as life. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the so...
ORHAN PAMUK

Authoritarianism, an unrealistic occidental imagination - these issues will never be settled. Turkey...
ORHAN PAMUK

Good fiction is about asserting the beauties of the world, inventing a new, positive thing. Where am...
ORHAN PAMUK

As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them
ORHAN PAMUK

Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.
ORHAN PAMUK

Culture is mix. Culture means a mix of things from other sources. And my town, Istanbul, was this ki...
ORHAN PAMUK

How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understa...
ORHAN PAMUK

People only tell lies when there is something they are terribly frightened of losing.
ORHAN PAMUK

Just as good books give me the joys of being alive, bad novels depress me, and as I notice this sent...
ORHAN PAMUK

Thirty-thousand Kurds were killed here, 1 million Armenians as well. And almost no one talks about i...
ORHAN PAMUK

Novels are political because in them, we try to identify with people who are not like us. And, in th...
ORHAN PAMUK

I always enjoy impersonating my characters in the first-person singular.
ORHAN PAMUK

The fictive structure, my work, my imagination, my books are about the details, the huge constructio...
ORHAN PAMUK

If I think back on the books to which I have devoted my entire life, I am most surprised by those mo...
ORHAN PAMUK

For me, Westernization is not about consuming fanciful goods; it's about a system of free speech...
ORHAN PAMUK

The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorr...
ORHAN PAMUK

I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the ...
ORHAN PAMUK

I strongly believe that the art of the novel works best when the writer identifies with whoever he o...
ORHAN PAMUK

You can’t start out again in life, that’s a carriage ride you only take once, but with a book in...
ORHAN PAMUK

The fueling of anti-Turkish sentiment in Europe is resulting in an anti-European, indiscriminate nat...
ORHAN PAMUK

In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be t...
ORHAN PAMUK

Ka found it very soothing: for the first time in years, he felt part of a family. In spite of the tr...
ORHAN PAMUK

How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to unders...
ORHAN PAMUK

Let me first state forthright that contrary to what we've often read in books and heard from preache...
ORHAN PAMUK

Love is a sacred silence.
ORHAN PAMUK

Time had not faded my memories (as I had prayed to God it might), nor had it healed my wounds as it ...
ORHAN PAMUK

‎The past is always an invented land.
ORHAN PAMUK

What was the difference between love and the agony of waiting? Like love, the agony of waiting began...
ORHAN PAMUK

We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction
ORHAN PAMUK

There's a lot of pride involved in my refusal to believe in god.
ORHAN PAMUK

I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a colour?

Colour is the touch of the...
ORHAN PAMUK

When we lose people we love, we should never disturb their souls, whether living or dead. Instead. w...
ORHAN PAMUK

After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.
ORHAN PAMUK

My unhappiness protects me from life.
ORHAN PAMUK

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.
ORHAN PAMUK

There are two kind of men,' said Ka, in a didatic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until...
ORHAN PAMUK

Solo después de casarse descubrió Galip que en la vida de aquella persona anónima a la que las es...
ORHAN PAMUK

¿Es el amor el que vuelve estúpidas a las personas o es que sólo los estúpidos se enamoran?
ORHAN PAMUK

Thirty thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to ...
ORHAN PAMUK

There is nothing that constitutes a crime in this interview.
ORHAN PAMUK

There is no doubt that it will raise questions about the wisdom of Turkey's EU membership bid. How c...
ORHAN PAMUK

I think perhaps it is a generational thing. I talk to younger people and they say, 'Where is this me...
ORHAN PAMUK

he said. ''Therefore, I do.
ORHAN PAMUK

I repeat, I said loud and clear that 1 million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey, and...
ORHAN PAMUK

If you think you are better than Stork, then by all means, get hold of me.
ORHAN PAMUK

It's such a shame that we know so little about our own country, that we can't find it in our hearts ...
ORHAN PAMUK

With the death of my father, it wasn't just the objects of everyday life that had changed; even the ...
ORHAN PAMUK

أحيانًا يخيفني، ويرعبني، ويذكرني بطفولتي، إنني أشتاق �...
ORHAN PAMUK

In Europe the rich are refined enough to act as if they're not wealthy. That is how civilized people...
ORHAN PAMUK

And before long , the msuic , the views rushing past the window , my fathers voice and the narrow co...
ORHAN PAMUK

عندما بكيتُ شعرتُ أنني امرأة أخرى انفصلت عني، وأرى حيا�...
ORHAN PAMUK

لعلّهم اعتادوا . ما أسوأ هذا !
لإن الإنسان وهو ميّت يش...
ORHAN PAMUK

Are you an angel that approaching you should be so terrifying?
ORHAN PAMUK

قبلا فکر میکردم که اگه دو نفر به هم همیشه راست بگن ،یعنی...
ORHAN PAMUK

شعرت بدفء في داخلي و أنا أعمل , كما شعرت أنني من عباد الل...
ORHAN PAMUK

الموت ليس نهاية كل شيء , وهذا مؤكد , ولكنه مؤلم إلى حدّ ل�...
ORHAN PAMUK

...it seemed to me that the entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened i...
ORHAN PAMUK

...The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and comp...
ORHAN PAMUK

الشعرُ شقيق الرسم ، و اللون شقيق الكلمة .
ORHAN PAMUK

أنا تعيسة لإني لا أفهم مايقول قلبي
ORHAN PAMUK

ثمّة لحظات تمُر في حياتنا جميعاً نُدرك عند حدوثها أننا...
ORHAN PAMUK

المهارة ليست بقراءة المكتوب فقط !
ORHAN PAMUK

كان خلفي زمن لا محدود حتّى قبل أن أولد , وبعد أن متّ أيضا...
ORHAN PAMUK

Colour is the touch of the eye,
Music to the deaf,
A word out of darkness.
ORHAN PAMUK

I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well.
ORHAN PAMUK

هل العشق يجعل الإنسان غبيّاً أم أن الأغبياء فقط يعشقون ...
ORHAN PAMUK

A letter doesn't communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it,...
ORHAN PAMUK

Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of ...
ORHAN PAMUK

Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves mig...
ORHAN PAMUK

For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.
ORHAN PAMUK

The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compass...
ORHAN PAMUK

When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, g...
ORHAN PAMUK

Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.
ORHAN PAMUK

Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?
ORHAN PAMUK

I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.
ORHAN PAMUK

The real question is how much suffering we've caused our womenfolk by turning headscarves into symbo...
ORHAN PAMUK

The gap between compassion and surrender is love’s darkest, deepest region.
ORHAN PAMUK

The power of things inheres in the memories they gather up inside them, and also in the vicissitudes...
ORHAN PAMUK

But we should search for the strange and surprising in the world, not within ourselves! To search wi...
ORHAN PAMUK

Suddenly Ka realized he was in love with İpek. And realizing that this love would determine the res...
ORHAN PAMUK

It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn't know it. Had I known, had I cherished this gi...
ORHAN PAMUK

Ka knew very well that life was a meaningless string of random incidents
ORHAN PAMUK

The opponents of this process have always tried to vilify westernization as a poor imitation.
ORHAN PAMUK

I think perhaps it is a generational thing,
ORHAN PAMUK

We don't need more museums that try to construct the historical narratives of a society, community, ...
ORHAN PAMUK

I must be myself, I said over and over. I must forget these people buzzing inside my head, I must fo...
ORHAN PAMUK

In the cities of the European Franks, women roam about exposing not only their faces, but also their...
ORHAN PAMUK

The writer's secret is not inspiration - for it is never clear where it comes from - it is his s...
ORHAN PAMUK

Cuando el jardín de la memoria comienza a secarse -le había dicho Celâl una de aquellas noches-, ...
ORHAN PAMUK

Encontrarse solo con los rastros en lugar de con los recuerdos en sí se parece a mirar con lágrima...
ORHAN PAMUK

Cualquier cosa que me recuerde a ti, me entristece tanto que no lo puedo soportar.
ORHAN PAMUK

An illustration that does not complement a story, in the end, will become but a false idol. Since we...
ORHAN PAMUK

Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece wi...
ORHAN PAMUK

Well, on the one hand the Turks have the legitimate need to defend their national dignity - and this...
ORHAN PAMUK

It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn't know it.
ORHAN PAMUK

Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a lon...
ORHAN PAMUK

- اسمعيني .. لا تُعاش الحياة من أجل المبادئ , بل من أجل ال�...
ORHAN PAMUK

Despite the loss they were suffering, they'd both relaxed - as people do when they realize they've r...
ORHAN PAMUK

For the traveler we see leaning on his neighbor is an honest and well-meaning man and full of melanc...
ORHAN PAMUK

Ka thought it strangely depressing that the suicide girls had had to struggle to find a private mome...
ORHAN PAMUK

...in a brutal country like ours where human life is cheap, it's stupid to destroy yourself for the ...
ORHAN PAMUK

Snow reminds Ka of God! But I’m not sure it would be accurate. What brings me close to God is the ...
ORHAN PAMUK

The knowledge that she could learn to love a man had always meant more to her than loving him effort...
ORHAN PAMUK

Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love.
ORHAN PAMUK

...the endless repetition of an ordinary miracle.
ORHAN PAMUK

Most of the time it's not the Europeans who belittle us. What happens when we look at them is that w...
ORHAN PAMUK

...every person has a star, every star has a friend, and for every person carrying a star there is s...
ORHAN PAMUK

I think a lot about the poems I wasn't able to write...I masturbrated...Solitude is essentially a ma...
ORHAN PAMUK

Heaven was the place where you kept alive the dreams of your memories.
ORHAN PAMUK

The thing that binds us together is that we have both lowered our expectations of life
ORHAN PAMUK

What is the thing you want most from me? What can I do to make you love me?'

Be yourself,...
ORHAN PAMUK

In a brutal country like ours, where human life is 'cheap', it's stupid to destroy yourself for the ...
ORHAN PAMUK

when we reach the point when our lives take on their final shape as in a novel we can identify our h...
ORHAN PAMUK

Bu vatan, toprağın kara bağrında
Sıradağlar gibi duranlarındır;
Bir tarih boyunca,...
ORHAN ŞAIK GöKYAY

Bakakalırım giden geminin ardından;
Atamam kendimi denize, dünya güzel;
Serde erkek...
ORHAN VELI KANıK

I don't love her anymore
So
Why should I walk
Nights
By the tavern
Where I ...
ORHAN VELI KANıK

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile.

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Orhan Pamuk

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile.

Orhan Pamuk

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